Automotive instrument panels, such as on dashboards, radios, components and the like, usually employ a face plate having a body of transparent light conducting material and a decorative outer applique which includes legends and indicia for various knobs and gauges. Instrument gauges mounted behind the face plate have pointer members which are arranged to rotate or move along the indicia to reveal certain facts to the vehicle operator, such as vehicle speed, engine temperature, fuel level, and other vehicle parameters.
The instrument pointers are typically indirectly illuminated by lamps to afford visibility to the vehicle operator at night and low light conditions. The illumination typically is indirect and provided by lamps and lights arranged around the periphery of the face plate which conduct some light to each pointer. Typically, however, the light sources are positioned at a distance from the instrument pointers and light intensity is lost in the transition.
It is well known to provide illumination of instrument pointers by incorporating small lamps on the pointers themselves, or by using light conducting transparent pointer material optically coupled to a nearby light source. In the case of light conduction schemes, it is the usual practice to transmit light from a remote lamp to one or more transparent elements and into the pointer in such a manner that many reflections are required. As a result, only a small portion of the source light actually enters the pointer resulting in a low level of pointer illumination.
Previously, applying direct lighting to conventional gauges and instrument clusters has proven to be difficult in view of the presence of the motor and gears which are used rotate the pointer member and are positioned directly in back of the instrument panels. It also is difficult to provide pointer illumination that is sufficiently bright and will not change during pointer movement.
It thus is desirable to provide an instrument pointer mechanism for a vehicle instrument panel or the like which provides more usable light to the pointer than previously known. It is also an object of the present invention to provide pointer illumination which offers bright illumination as well as a light level which is independent of pointer angular position.